That Night over Half Dome
Image Credit &
Copyright:
Rogelio Bernal
Andreo (Deep Sky Colors)
Captured one night
last May this eight frame mosaic starts
on the left, down Northside Drive through
Yosemite National Park.
It ends thousands of light-years away though, as the arc of
the Milky Way tracks toward the
center of our galaxy on the right,
far beyond the park's rugged skyline.
That night was still moonless when the storm clouds retreated, so the
rocky faces
of the surrounding mountains are lit by campfires and
artificial lights.
Yosemite
Falls is at the left.
The granite
face of Half Dome juts above the far
horizon, near the center of the view.
The remarkable flash above it is a bright meteor.
Part of the annual Eta Aquarid meteor shower the colorful
streak is moving up, its trail pointing directly
back to the shower's radiant,
low in Aquarius.
This
year's Eta Aquarids should peak in the moonless
early morning hours of May 6 as the Earth sweeps through dust
from the tail of Comet Halley.